Tuesday, April 4, 2017

The Urban Legends of Those Attacking Ritual Abuse Theories and the False Logic of False Memory Proponents and Their Occultist Supporters

The
Urban Legends of Those Attacking Ritual Abuse Theories and the False
Logic of False Memory Proponents and Their Occultist Supporters – Presentation at the 2016 Annual Ritual Abuse, Secretive Organizations and Mind Control Conference
Second half of the article discusses the Grey Faction, a part of the Satanic Temple and Lucien Greaves/Doug Mesner.This
presentation has been adapted for the Internet. It was presented at the
conference by Neil Brick, a survivor of ritual abuse and mind control.
His work continues to educate the public about child abuse, trauma and
ritual abuse crimes. His child abuse and ritual abuse newsletter
S.M.A.R.T. has been published for over 20 years. His articles can be
found at http://neilbrick.com
All accusations are alleged. This information is educational and not
intended as therapy or treatment. The ideas I discuss here today are
only my own or where cited taken from sources.
Reading this information may or may not help your recovery process, so
please use caution while reading this. This may be heavy for survivors.The Urban Legends of Those Attacking Ritual Abuse Theories and
the False Logic of False Memory Proponents and Their Occultist
Supporters
The vicious attacks, harassment and false logic of those untrained to
ascertain recovery and therapeutic techniques continues into recent
years from the 1990s. Many of these attacks use the same propaganda
techniques, like name calling, insults and repetition as those from the
1980s and 90s. Modern examples will be given and compared to those from
prior years.
In the 1980’s and early 1990’s there was a strong backlash against child abuse and ritual abuse survivors.Media Manipulation by False Memory Proponents
There are two excellent articles that discuss this backlash and how the
media was manipulated and turned against child abuse survivors.
Links to two important articles discussing this are at: https://ritualabuse.us/research/Controlling the Media
1) U-Turn on Memory Lane by Mike Stanton – Columbia Journalism Review – July/August 1997http://web.archive.org/web/20071216011151/http://backissues.cjrarchives.org/year/97/4/memory.asp
“Rarely has such a strange and little-understood organization had such a
profound effect on media coverage of such a controversial matter. The
foundation is an aggressive, well-financed p.r. machine adept at
manipulating the press, harassing its critics, and mobilizing a diverse
army of psychiatrists, outspoken academics, expert defense witnesses,
litigious lawyers, Freud bashers, critics of psychotherapy, and
devastated parents. With a budget of $750,000 a year from members and
outside supporters, the foundation’s reach far exceeds its actual
membership of about 3,000.”
“As controversial memory cases arose around the country, FMSF boosters
contacted journalists to pitch the false-memory argument, more and more
reporters picked up on the issue, and the foundation became an overnight
media darling. The story line that had dominated the press since the
1980s — an underreported toll of sexual abuse, including sympathetic
stories of adult survivors resurrecting long-lost memories of it — was
quickly turned around. The focus shifted to new tearful victims —
respectable, elderly parents who could no longer see their children and
grandchildren because of bad therapists who implanted memories…:”

Battle Tactics of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation –
Noel Packard – New School for Social Research, N.Y. History Matters
Conference April 23-24, 2004 Censorship is also a tactic that FMS
Foundation adherents use to silence voices they don’t agree with. Katy
Butler, published a critical review of Ofshe’s and Watter’s book, Making
Monsters (1994) in the Los Angeles Times. Later the newspaper’s book
review editor received a vague threat of a lawsuit from Ofshe’s
representative (K. Butler personal communication with Lynn Crook January
28, 2000). Later Butler was asked to write a story for Newsweek
examining the uncritical acceptance of Foundation claims and to provide
documented cases of recovered memory and traumatic amnesia. Upon
learning of this assignment Foundation Advisory Board members Richard
Ofshe and Fredrick Crews, as well as Peter and Pamela Freyd, wrote
strongly worded letters of complaint to Newsweek which effectively
canceled Butler’s assignment (Stanton 1997). Although these censorship
activities were reported in Mike Stanton’s article “U-Turn on Memory
Lane” (1997) Nevertheless, Newsweek editors confirmed that the FMS
Foundation letters helped kill Butler’s article. http://www.newschool.edu/nssr/historymatters/papers/NoelPackard.pdfMisrepresentation of the data and the harassment of those
defending child abuse survivors were two major parts of the false memory
movement used against child abuse survivors.The harassment was meant to scare people from discussing child
abuse, ritual abuse and mind control crimes. And this harassment
continues today.
We have a page devoted to these tactics:False memory syndrome proponents tactics – False memory
syndrome proponents have done the following to try and ensure that only
their point of view is in the public view. Harassing debate opponents,
misrepresenting the data in the field and controlling the media. https://ritualabuse.us/research/memory-fms/false-memory-syndrome-proponents-tactics/HarassmentConfessions of a Whistle-Blower: Lessons Learned
Author: Anna C. Salter DOI: 10.1207/s15327019eb0802_2 Published in:
Ethics & Behavior, Volume 8, Issue 2 June 1998 , pages 115 – 124
Abstract – In 1988 I began a report on the accuracy of expert testimony
in child sexual abuse cases utilizing Ralph Underwager and Hollida
Wakefield as a case study (Wakefield & Underwager, 1988). In
response, Underwager and Wakefield began a campaign of harassment and
intimidation, which included multiple lawsuits; an ethics charge; phony
(and secretly taped) phone calls; and ad hominem attacks, including one
that I was laundering federal grant monies. The harassment and
intimidation failed as the author refused demands to retract. In
addition, the lawsuits and ethics charges were dismissed.http://ritualabuse.us/research/memory-fms/confessions-of-a-whistle-blower-lessons-learned/http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a918444284
Calof, D.L. (1998). Notes from a practice under siege: Harassment, defamation, and intimidation in the name of science,
Ethics and Behavior, 8(2) pp. 161-187. Abstract: I have practiced
psychotherapy, family therapy, and hypnotherapy for over 25 years
without a single board complaint or lawsuit by a client. For over 3
years, however, a group of proponents of the false memory syndrome (FMS)
hypothesis, including members, officials, and supporters of the False
Memory Syndrome Foundation, Inc., have waged a multimodal campaign of
harassment and defamation directed against me, my clinical clients, my
staff, my family, and others connected to me. I have neither treated
these harassers or their families nor had any professional or personal
dealings with any of them; I am not related in any way to the
disclosures of memories of sexual abuse in these families. Nonetheless,
this group disrupts my professional and personal life and threatens to
drive me out of business. In this article, I describe practicing
psychotherapy under a state of siege and place the campaign against me
in the context of a much broader effort in the FMS movement to
denigrate, defame, and harass clinicians, lecturers, writers, and
researchers identified with the abuse and trauma treatment communities. http://ritualabuse.us/research/memory-fms/notes-from-a-practice-under-siege/
David Calof author note : I should also add that this article covers the
first four years of what would become an over 10 year campaign of
harassment and the most egregious actions actually took place after this
article was published.Misrepresenting the data in the field
“Since at least 95 percent of child molesters initially deny their
abusive behaviors, how can untrained lay people like Pamela Freyd and
her staff “document” a real or “unreal” case of “FMS,” as appears to be
the case with most of their communications, which usually occur over the
telephone or by letter. (p. 76) (Memory and Abuse: Remembering and
Healing the Effects of Trauma By Charles L. Whitfield, Christine
Courtois Published by HCI, 1995)http://books.google.com/books?id=z1LW3u1e04YC
Jennifer J. Freyd, Ph.D., author of “Betrayal Trauma: The Logic of Forgetting Childhood Abuse”
“Despite this documentation for both traumatic amnesia and essentially
accurate delayed recall, memory science is often presented as if it
supports the view that traumatic amnesia is very unlikely or perhaps
impossible and that a great many, perhaps a majority, maybe even all,
recovered memories of abuse are false….Yet no research supports such an
implication…and a great deal of research supports the premise that
forgetting sexual abuse is fairly common and that recovered memories are
sometimes essentially true.” (p. 107)Science in the Memory Debate – Ethics & Behavior, Volume 8, Issue 2 June 1998 , pages 101 – 113 https://web.archive.org/web/20130225044634/http://fmsf.com/ethics.shtmlhttp://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a918444283
“Psychologists Ralph Underwager and Hollida Wakefield have written two
books…When a given reference fails to support their viewpoint they
simply misstate the conclusion. When they cannot use a quotation out of
context from an article, they make unsupported statements, some of which
are palpably untrue and others simply unprovable. David L. Chadwick,
Book Review, in 261 JAMA 3035 (May 26, 1989)” https://web.archive.org/web/20100315032508/http://vlex.com/vid/underwager-hollida-wakefield-salter-36092881The myth of panic, called Satanic Panic, a propaganda term that
rhymes so people are less likely to forget it. This false concept was
developed in the early 1990s.
This concept has been rebutted by Ross E. Cheit, a professor of
Political Science and International & Public Affairs at Brown
University.in his book:The Witch-Hunt Narrativehttp://blogs.brown.edu/rcheit/
This book goes through many of the day care and child abuse cases of the 1990s using primary sources.The Witch-Hunt Narrative Politics, Psychology, and the Sexual Abuse of Children
Ross E. Cheit
Empirically challenges the view that a series of high-profile cases in the 1980s and early 1990s were hoaxes
Shows how a narrative based on empirically thin evidence became a theory
with real social force, and how that theory stood at odds with the
reality of child sexual abusehttps://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-witch-hunt-narrative-9780199931224?cc=us&lang=en&Yet this book was largely ignored by the mainstream media. But
books the continue the dialogue promoting the urban legend of panic
continue to get wide spread coverage.
This is the history of the harassment of child abuse survivors in the past. Now I will discuss the present harassment of those working to expose and present the research of child abuse crimes.
The case study I will use today is my own.
My license to practice therapy has been threatened with filed licensing
complaints by people connected to a group called the Grey Faction, a
part of the Satanic Temple. My job as a therapist has nothing to do with
my advocacy efforts to stop child abuse and I have very clear
professional and private boundaries that I maintain to ensure this
continues to occur. Yet, the Grey Faction associates keep harassing me
and others in the field. Their attacks are factually inaccurate and
meritless. Their attempts to silence me have not worked. I have
continued to publish research and promote the truth about child abuse,
ritual abuse and mind control crimes on the Internet.
Their campaign to silence child abuse survivors and rape victims has combined harassment, propaganda and misinformation.Harassment:
The Grey Faction has admitted they infiltrated a survivor conference. I
believe the person attending lied about why they were at the conference,
filmed me without my permission and the Grey Faction put part of the
film on the Internet.
Besides the fact that this is highly amoral, they misrepresented what I
said and used a variety of propaganda techniques to spin and twist my
words and my research.
The video of me is presented in black and white with scary music similar
to a horror film. The video falsely portrays my asking people to stop
going to their face and using hand signals as paranoia and bullying, yet
if you listen to the words, the tone of my voice is calm and quiet. The
video discusses the filing of a licensing complaint against me. It
discusses and misrepresents my story as a child abuse survivor, where I
was forced to hurt others as a child.
The video is in essence pure propaganda. Incredibly, over a thousand
people signed a petition written by the Grey Faction to have my license
taken away from me, not knowing who I am or the real facts about my
research or my job. This is the danger of propaganda and how the media
can be misused to hurt others.The video and the petition against me are both heavily laden with propaganda, misinformation and the misrepresentation of facts.
One fact Lucien Greaves/Doug Mesner (not his real names) repeatedly
reports is one where at our 2009 conference one table had clothing that
protected against electromagnetic frequencies for health reasons. This
got misrepresented as “tin foil hats” and this propaganda has been
repeated numerous times by Mesner/Greaves.
One line from his petition states: “Neil Brick continues to propagate
debunked and disregarded narratives of concealed occult crimes from the
height of the “Satanic Panic.”
I have already shown how there was no panic and these cases were
misrepresented by past false memory and now the false memory occultists
proponents.
The petition goes on and on misrepresenting my arguments and my research.
We replied to the Grey Faction/Lucien Greaves and their misinformation in depth at:Reply to the Grey Faction’s Petition to Revoke the License of Neil Brickhttps://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/reply-to-the-grey-factions-petition-to-revoke-the-license-of-neil-brick/
“We believe that this new letter is part of the continued actions of
harassment against Neil Brick and those that help child and ritual abuse
survivors.”
“The petition states Neil Brick has a dangerous state-of-mind and
unsubstantiated, delusional beliefs. This is pure conjecture and
unproven. There is no real evidence presented anywhere of this and
Neil’s evaluation during the filing of the previous complaint found
there were no problems at all with Neil’s mental state. Neil’s beliefs
are clearly substantiated with research at https://ritualabuse.us
The use of the pejorative terms in the petition mentioned above are
unproven and are used to mischaracterize Neil Brick and his work.”
“The petition links to several articles at the https://ritualabuse.us
website. The petition mischaracterizes the content of these articles.
Neil as a child was forced to kill people in a cult. He was brainwashed
in this group as a small child. Many well known cults today program
their members to join and not leave and to follow them, asking them to
commit acts they would not do outside of the cult. This is a well
researched topic.”
“The (Grey Faction) petition states “While we are not privy to records
that indicate methods of treatment employed in Neil Brick’s practice.”
This is one of the most important parts of their petition. There is no
evidence there are any problems with any methods of treatment Neil
uses.”
“The petition mentions Neil Brick promotes implausible ideas, yet Neil’s
ideas are backed by research and journal articles. If the Grey Faction
decides to ignore or disbelieve this research, this does not mean Neil’s
research is implausible. As previously stated, Neil does not and would
never promote his research in his role as a licensed mental health care
professional as this would be a clear violation of professional
boundaries. In our opinion, this is simply part of a continued pattern
of on and offline harassment against Neil Brick and others who are
trying to get the research out about child and ritual abuse and trauma.”
This is from our website replying to a guest post by the Satanic Temple’s Grey Faction:https://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/reply-to-the-satanic-temples-grey-faction-online-guest-post/
In conclusion, the guest post by the Satanic Temple’s Grey Faction
criticizes the strong research and theories of ritual abuse survivors
and those with years of research, experience and education in the trauma
field. (The members of the Grey Faction have unknown credentials and
may not have the experience to accurately determine trauma theory and
research.) The guest post by the Satanic Temple’s Grey Faction presents
inaccurate arguments, which are refuted in this article.

The
Grey Faction claims they are combating pseudoscience with rational
inquiry, but this rational inquiry is actually predetermined opinion,
bolstered by name calling, ad hominem attacks and insults. There is no
real rational inquiry because there is no evidence that all of the facts
were looked at neutrally to derive a conclusion.

It appears
the only facts considered were the ones that back their arguments. In
its articles, the Grey Faction hides behind the name of science and
rationality, when in reality it appears it is an advocacy organization
used to discredit ritual abuse survivors realities’ and their resources.From an article by Shane Bugbee, a former acquaintance of Doug Mesner/Lucien Greaves:
“Then Doug told me his main motivation for The Satanic Temple was
profit, to create a “substantial income”, that was enough for me to want
to cease helping in any way, and to question the true intent of this
project. While I am all for profit, I want nothing to do with a cult.
Because the people The Satanic Temple wants to extract money from are MY
people.”
“I recall Doug Mesner telling me the C.I.A. had asked him to write some
private reports for them, maybe in my most paranoid state I could run
with and ramble about the possibilities there.”
If this is true, then this shows a possible motive for Mesner’s attacks
on our field. His work has critiqued D C Hammond’s research of the early
1990’s.http://www.empty-memories.nl/science/greenbaum.pdfhttp://whale.to/b/greenbaum.html
https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=9FUersarZuo (remove spaces to cut and paste and watch video)

Propaganda (1928) by Edward Bernays
“….But when the example of the leader is not at hand and the herd must
think for itself, it does so by means of cliches, pat words or images
which stand for a whole group of ideas or experiences. Not many years
ago, it was only necessary to tag a political candidate with the word
interests to stampede millions of people into voting against him,
because anything associated with “the interests” seemed necessarily
corrupt. Recently the word Bolshevik has performed a similar service for
persons who wished to frighten the public away from a line of action.
By playing upon an old cliche, or manipulating a new one, the
propagandist can sometimes swing a whole mass of group emotions. In
Great Britain, during the war, the evacuation hospitals came in for a
considerable amount of criticism because of the summary way in which
they handled their wounded. It was assumed by the public that a hospital
gives prolonged and conscientious attention to its patients. When the
name was changed to evacuation posts the critical reaction vanished. No
one expected more than an adequate emergency treatment from an
institution so named. The cliche hospital was indelibly associated in
the public mind with a certain picture. To persuade the public to
discriminate between one type of hospital and another, to dissociate the
cliche from the picture it evoked, would have been an impossible task.
Instead, a new cliche automatically conditioned the public emotion
toward these hospitals.”http://www.historyisaweapon.org/defcon1/bernprop.html
The Grey Faction uses specific phrases repeated to describe my work and
the work of researchers in our field. These include “delusional”
“paranoid” and “dangerous state-of-mind.” One common concepts they
promote is that our researchers “sell(ing) delusion to the mentally
vulnerable.” Of course no one is selling anything, there is no presented
evidence anyone is delusional (this is unsubstantiated opinion) and
there is no presented evidence anyone is “vulnerable” or being taken
advantage of in any way.
Unfortunately, others in our field have joined the Grey Faction in their
attacks on me and the belief in mind control techniques. Remember that
some of our best researchers, who will be speaking tomorrow at our
conference have done years of research backing the validity of the use
of cult hand signals and other forms of triggers to access survivors’
programming.
I believe that the work of the Grey Faction is meant to purposefully
dehumanize and insult ideological opponents, so our ideas are derided
and not believed. This is similar to the political cartoons and
caricatures of one hundred years ago, when a political figure may be
drawn in a demeaning manner. This is similar to the way dictatorships in
history have demeaned their targets to gain public acceptance. These
dishonest debate tactics go beyond simple ad hominems into personal
insults. This is often seen by those in the comment sections below the
articles attacking myself and others in our field.
Also from Bernay:
“THE conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized
habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic
society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society
constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our
country.
We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas
suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical
result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast
numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to
live together as a smoothly functioning society.”
I disagree with Bernay for the need for our society to do this, but this
is the society we live in today. This is why it is almost impossible to
get our research into the mainstream media, but the occultists and
false memory people have no problem getting large amounts of media
coverage.We can see common threads in attacks against child abuse survivors throughout history.
Child abuse survivors have been called crazy, confused, hysterical,
delusional and so on in attempts to maintain the status quo of child
abuse being covered up in our society. Regardless of what the false
memory occultists write, the reality is that they are part of this cover
up. Instead of focusing on the factual information I write, I have been
attacked personally in an attempt to silence me. It has not worked.
Historically, when those that harass others win, our society suffers.
They will not win. We will.